Published on: July 28, 2009

We are publishing one of the winner of an Excellence project at the 26th IALD Lighting Design Awards done by Lighting Design International.

The spa is located in the basement of a 19th century house and has obviously quite a different character than the building above. It features a swimming pool, gymnasium, jacuzzi, steam room and sauna.

Here is more information by Lighting Design International:

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The brief for ‘Private House Spa’ was to create a series of calming, coherent and relaxing spaces in the newly carved-out basement. The lighting challenge was to create a versatile yet discrete scheme, which would enhance and complement the forms, while creating the correct ambience for this tranquil subterranean retreat.

Lighting had to be integral to the form, with great efforts made to hide all visible technology with clever coordination and custom detailing. We wanted the visitor to see the effect of light, and not the source wherever possible.

You access through a black, fumed-oak stairwell, with low moody lighting provided by incandescent pendants and concealed cold cathode linear stringer lighting; before entering into the brighter chalky-white limestone basement, lit by a complementary blend of natural and artificial light.

Turning past the sauna you see the first view of the pool; internally clad with Black Sicilian Basaltina, and mirroring the play of light cast across the undulating GRG ceiling above. A skylight tucked-up out of view, lights the end wall naturally by day (balanced by artificial light at night) to reflect light across the space, modelling and accentuating the ceilings sculptural form. Halogen flood lighting is used to light the end wall during the evening, providing warm white dimmable light, and focus to the end of the space.

The pool’s ceiling is halo-lit from its angular perimeter, with two concealed indirect light sources, bouncing light down the walls and defining the structure’s peaks and troughs with a distinct line of light. Cold cathode lights the space by day in a crisp mid-white (3500°K), with colour variable LED providing warm white glows or selected dramatic colours during the evening; for versatility of ambiance and use. This trough provides almost all of the space’s high level lighting, with no lighting permitted to penetrate the sculptural ceiling.

The indirect ceiling slot detail that provides the halo-lighting conceals cold cathode with turned back electrodes, linear colour variable LED fittings and AC slots. All lighting within the detail is mounted neatly to lift out wooden templates to aid installation, positioning and maintenance. LED’s are angled to skim over the cold cathode tubes minimising visible shadows, and all cabling in also fixed down for the same reason.

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